The Southern Highland Reader

NATIONAL–The National Collegiate Athletic Association is in the fifth year of its ambitious and intricate plan to improve academic performance across the broad spectrum of college athletics.

The good news is, it’s working. The bad news, for Western Carolina University football fans, is that the NCAA has penalized Western three football scholarships for recent academic progress issues.

Every Division I sports team calculates its APR each academic year, based on the eligibility, retention and graduation of each scholarship student-athlete, and its APR score becomes part of a four-year snapshot of the teams’ progress. A score of 925 is equal to a graduation rate of 60 percent. Scores below 925 can be subject to penalty. Teams can lose up to 10 percent of their scholarships through immediate penalties.

Stiffer penalties exist for programs that show long-term struggles.

Western football fell into the “short-term” category by scoring 919 for 2008, after scoring 928 for each of the two previous years.

NCAA President Myles Brand stressed yesterday that the latest APR data highlight that academic reform has led to improved behavior in the classroom across the board in nearly every sport. The overall four-year Division I APR is 964, with the overall single-year rate up 10 points to 971 compared to five years ago. The number of student-athletes leaving school academically ineligible, meanwhile, continues to sharply decrease.

WCU didn’t win top-ten-percent accolades for any of its athletics squads, but most were comfortably on-par with other Division 1 public institutions, or slightly above average. Exceptions were to be found in coach Danny Williamson’s indoor and outdoor track squads for men and women, whose APRs ranged between the 60th and 80th percentiles among all such Division 1 teams. In addition, the Catamount men won the recent SoCon championship meet. The women placed second.

Across the SoCon:

Chattanooga was banned from postseason play in 2009, and is the first Div. 1 school to be so penalized. The Mocs’ multi-year APR sank to 870.

Also dealing with bad news is Georgia Southern, which lost two scholarships in men’s basketball and 3.02 in football, and Chattanooga basketball (one scholarship).

Tags: national collegiate athletic association, NCAA, WCU football, Western Carolina University

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2. More on NCAA scholarship penalties against WCU
3. SPORTS: Back to earth: WCU loses big at Texas
4. The Southern Conference and football “money” games
5. Updated: Recruit knocks heads with WCU, sues NCAA

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